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According to the researcher, in just one year, the cost of RAM has undone 20 years of evolution and price reductions. Illustrative graphs show a massive disruption in market pricing caused by frenzied demand from the AI industry.
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The main conclusion is that the rapid rise in the cost of data storage systems has been ongoing for over a year, and experts expect another price spike in the near future. A well-known developer on GitHub has published charts showing that per-unit retail prices have returned to 2007 levels. This has effectively undone two decades of efforts to make computer hardware affordable for ordinary users.
Computer science researcher and software performance expert Daniel Lemire describes this uncontrolled rise as a “historical anomaly.” In his view, the unprecedented surge in costs over a short period of time has completely reversed the long-standing trend of steady and exponential price reductions for components.
The expert is convinced that: in order to stabilize prices and bring the market back to normal, software developers will have to create AI systems that require less memory, or the hardware industry will need to significantly expand its production capacity.
The global cost of memory modules has skyrocketed over the past two years due to increased demand from the AI sector; according to estimates in a recent report prepared by the financial firm J.P. Morgan, this figure has exceeded 400% since the beginning of 2024. Unfortunately for consumers, the crisis has not been limited to DRAM chips, as an acute shortage in flash memory production has driven up prices for SSDs, USB flash drives, memory cards, and external storage devices.
Analytical data shows that wholesale and retail prices for NAND flash have jumped by 50% to 100% since the start of the crisis. This has led to a global increase in the cost of consumer electronics, including laptops, desktop PCs, graphics cards, smartphones, and gaming consoles. In particular, manufacturers HP, Dell, and Apple have raised prices on their laptops and the MacBook lineup, while Sony and Nintendo have increased the prices of the PS5 and Switch 2 consoles, respectively.
South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix also delivered troubling news for consumers, predicting that the global memory crisis is far from over. According to its CEO, Kwak No-jeong, 2027 will be the most challenging year in the industry’s history, and demand will continue to outstrip supply even after 2030.
Historically, computer memory prices have been falling at an exponential rate for decades. But we’ve just undone about 20 years of progress.
RAM, on a per-unit basis, is about as expensive as it was in 2007.
To my knowledge, this is a historical anomaly. I cannot recall a similar… pic.twitter.com/UH6LgZ1fc4
– Daniel Lemire (@lemire) August 5, 2026
However, whether these gloomy predictions come true depends directly on the state and financial health of the AI sector, as concerns are growing in society that speculative investments in this sector are creating a bubble that could burst at any moment.